AUSA 2019: TEXTRON Systems debut their Ripsaw M5 unmanned system 

Skynet has a very big evil smile on his face after seeing this

Everyone is a gangster until a hacked robo tank starts to shoot up your city.

the Howe brothers have come along way with their innovative equipment.

Not sure if u are aware but this thing is very MODULAR.

SkyNet achieved self awareness in October, 2019.... what’s the worst that could happen?

Finally! This is finally something the Army can use! It took Howe&Howe over a decade but they've learned their lessons, took in suggestions, refined their product's strengths and have delivered a product that looks like it'll fit perfectly into the US Army's future. The only gripe I have is the lack of descriptive words used in the sales pitch. They repeat themselves a few times but it's alright because these guys are engineers, not politicians.

Its really good to see the Howe brothers managed to sustain their business long enough to get the Ripsaw developed and into service! Congrats!

I am extremely impressed with the capability and innovation in engineering of this combat vehicle. Well done.

Driving through woods at 40 mph? Someone has never been in actual woods.

Did NOBODY listen to the briefing from Kyle Reese in Terminator?

It's all cool tech, until it's coming for YOU.

I remember when these guys had their own reality show. Good to see they are still around.

I'm going to need a plasma rifle in the 40 watt range.

I've been following these guys for a long time and yes they are very capable. Looks like in the comments nobody knows about Howe and Howe tech. These guys are not playing around. They also built a one man personal tank that can fit through door ways. Swat teams love it.

Howe you are so onto something here with this platform. love the design. I wish all of you the best success. hard to believe how far you have come till now

The cost of one of these versus an Abrams, along with modern sensors, AI and drone swarm capabilities, large scale deployment of armed Ripsaw M5's could quickly overrun many defensive positions even while absorbing cost effective loses. "Disruptor" is right. Although not MBT's, squadrons of these things would be "Dominator" game changers.

Rivet armour and a bad shot trap on every surface. 50 dollar rpg will make this very modular....

If anyone of them had said “modular system” once more and how it can be configured to what you want, I was gonna reach through the screen and start strangling! Annoying sales people with a rehearsed pitch.

The Fast and the Furious called, they want their movie prop back 😂

"It's a really unique platform. There's nothing else like it in the world." Why do alarm bells sound in my head when I hear those words?

if they made this "man sized" or as big as an ATV with that silent 40mph cross country performance and an RWS with a 50BMG-40mm AGL combo.. that would be a real asset for a squad assaulting an urban battlefield

Congratulations Mike . U and ur brother , the entire team deserve it. Ripsaw & Textron are a game changer.

I remember this guys show on cable. I was amazed at his engineering skills. Just amazing.

yeah, because nothing named "The M-5" ever went full HAL-9000 on it's crew, huh?

Always loved the ripsaw platform.. Best of luck guys. I remember seeing it for the first time on RU-vid being built in a car garage. Not to mention it was in the G. I. Joe movie., 👍

It weighs 4tons, silence is a relative term when moving through terrain even with electric motors. Remote control death, friendly fire has never been so easy...

Sir John Cardon called, he wants his bright idea suspension back. I mean seriously, they've put a relatively big engine and electric motors inside a practically unarmoured 6 tonne RC car, slapped a turret on the top and said "Look, it goes really fast!"

Next we'll see the hunter-killer drones.

Those guys had come along way since the first model, seems like a cool concept, specially if it can perform multiple roles

Seems like it would be a great asset for the 82nd Airborne. Especially since they have not had any direct fire support since the Sheridan was retired .

Howe & Howe Tech from humble chop shop featured in Discovery Channel now becoming a military hardware contractor. Woot woot.

An Amphibious version would be badass and air dropped into the battlefield since its essentially a drone.

I remember the first iterations of this from Howe & Howe on TV a few years back. Well done on achieving a dream to make war fighting vehicles for the USA.

A fire fighting model would be useful, you could gain massive data and get paid by ppg mebbe. Showing an assortment of modules is vastly more effective than repeating talking points.

Others: Robot tank Me: "PANZER BOT"

I knew the ripsaw would go far but not this far this fast

It's great to know that China will have these in about 6 months, too...

Interesting. The vehicle shown in the video is roughly the same size as the M5 light tank that was used in the Second World War, has a main gun that fires a round that is just 7mm smaller in diameter but is much more powerful, has a bogie and suspension system that looks very similar, and it's called... wait for it... the M5. The M5 Ripsaw also looks like it's optimized for carrying out reconnaissance missions, and that's what the original M5 light tank was designed to do. Everything old is new again, with the exception of the robotic, semi-autonomous capabilities.

Everything works to perfection before it brakes down.

It should always be man against man or our sons will forget how cruel war is.

Hey, it even has a little terminator skull painted on the side. Very forward thinking.

Interesting combat vehicles available to test and deploy now days. Game on!

Production ALL APPROVED; make it fast and durable as STRONG, STREGNTH and HONOR of our UNIVERSAL SOLDIERS; 🦊

Based on some posts from a couple years ago, here's some amatuer modern-day analysis. This is the future. The US military is replacing the Bradley and Stryker IFV's eventually, and the requirement to do so is for the vehicle to be optionally manned. In the near term, this will absolutely be a manned vehicle, especially while carrying troops near the battle before they dismount. However, as part of the same family of new armored programs, is the RCV Robotic Combat Vehicle. This is one of several contractors involved at three levels: light, medium, and heavy. So, the one in this video is a medium variant at 10t to 20t. Heavy is over 30t and light will be under 10t. This is all still in the development and testing phase still, and no official contract has been issued for manufacturing, and even then it will require a lot of testing before deployment to any combat zone given it's unmanned capabilities. However, part of the Army's replacement program for armor is a new MBT. This is in the research phase, with the Abrams SepV4 variant improvement keeping the Abrams extremely capable in modern warfare. But, eventually, even these upgraded variants will age out, and there's no sign for MBT to be absent from the battlefield yet. So, as long as the front line has manned vehicles on the front, these light, medium, and heavy unmanned units will essentially reduce human casualties, have advanced scouting capabilities resistant to small arms fire, be able to integrate and launch both ground and air recon drones, and I have no doubt there will be a soldier trained to use the sensors and controls of the unmanned vehicles. Perhaps this control station requires a lot of infrastructure, but it also may be portable enough to be run out of the back of a IFV while the infantry are dismounted and clearing the front and flanks for armor to move in safely. Either way, these are all just predicted possibilities. The unmanned armor is there to provide even more firepower to conventional wars, offer themselves as targets versus an entire IFV/tank crew, perform recon duties including the deployment of light drones, and ultimately the AI software will likely be able to take real-time commands from an operator to designate where friendly forces are currently advancing, where the actual front line is as it advances, and an area where the scanners should prepare to target for live fire. It will also potentially be very useful on watch as a mobile and disguisable point defense system against artillery, drones, missiles, and aircraft. Also considering the UA and Russian war, we know how powerful drone warfare is already, and the heavy unmanned vehicle will likely also be able to launch some larger drones, and I have no doubt there will be variants of these vehicles on at least two, but perhaps all three weight classes, for anti-drone and anti-air. Just imagine medium class drones providing defenses against ATGM's and drones equipped with missiles or other explosives, as it serves as a defensive force for the tanks and IFVs behind the unmanned vehicles. A large variant with onboard power generation large enough for a high powered laser may be capable of instantly destroying any drone, missile, and perhaps tank/IFV fired HE shells in flight, also before they impact any friendly soldiers. As far as electronic warfare, the US and NATO currently leads the way here, but the future will inevitably be based in electronic warfare and counter-warfare at all levels, and not just the super-common present EW played out between fighter and attack jets and anti-air radar systems. As long as the technological edge is held, our counter-EW equipment should be able to counter the enemies attempts of using their own electronic warfare measures and depending on the technology, also capture ground-communications to gain intel while intercepting the signal and also cutting off the signal as needed to prevent the opposition from communicating, and perhaps detect the location of both communications and their electronic warfare and radar sources used. It may be a death sentence to use any form of radar or electronics against US/NATO forces in about a decade or so. It will far surpass counter barrages currently occurring in Ukraine, which requires any rocket or missile artillery to fire rounds and then immediately leave the area before the calculations are made on counter barrages to that location. Russia has already intercepted cell phone signals from the UA side, calculated it to a location or geolocated the location, and then sent a missile to that target. Just imagine what the US and NATO countries can do with their electronic and software capabilities now, and then imagine it in a decade from now. Warfare is definitely changing rapidly.

It has a winch on the rear. Does it come with robot to hook it up or is that optional.

This truly is the future of armor

This program started in there garage at that time it was a one man tank type dune buggy, nice to see in the biglige

I remember watching the show where these were originally built!

Yes but is it modular? I’m still not sure if it is or not. Depending on severity, perhaps there was a singularity in solidarity that created irregularity in the clarity of the disparity for the case of modularity resulting in internet hilarity. Modularity +tank = tankularity

You could get a army out of these little tanks for one there fast and tough enough to rip through anything on any type of ground snow mud ice wooden grounds I feel like it would make a dam big difference in the battle field because of its abilitys . It has action to make it happen maybe even more if it was built to drive and have a spot for a gunner

Why’s the tank closely resembles like M-1 Sherman tank.

Nice job guys Glad to see people pushing the boundaries. Excellent mobility and range as well as lethality. I'm impessed which is hard to do. I hope it's resistant to jamming. 😈😈😈😈😈

It’s like the scorpion and scimitar’s newborn child 😂

Hmm, for anti-air or area denial equip a turret with a MetalStorm 20mm for the first or a MS 40mm grenade launcher for the second task. For those saying that a "single shot from a howitzer" will take it out, first they have to _HIT_IT_. It's small and it can shoot-and-scoot FAST. And even if it _is_ taken out, the expensive "part" of the system is still around. The operator is well behind the lines, not out on the sharp end!

The effective modularity facilitates victoriousisation of the conflictification facilitating superior levels of trigger happiness

I'd love to see that in action!

Is the weight of a few humans very significant on the ground? If humans can't get inside how do they fix things? Where is the operator? How easily can it be jammed? Is it well protected or is the idea that protection is less important for Robots? Every design decision is a trade-off so where are the trade-offs here?

Ohh ripsaw m5 That gonna be a big upgrade for Stryker apc m3 Bradley and the JLTV to have a drone

Could use Kevlar skirts over the exposed track wheels and a chain-link cage around the turret to better resist RPGs.

Seems like you could have a pair of armed Boston Dynamics dogs slotted into a "kennel" instead of that marsupial thing. The potential for versatility really goes over the top at that point.

It's amazing the junk that rolls out of these guys minds. I am willing to bet not many if any have actual combat experience when it comes to changing thing out in a hurry. Years ago they were pushing a new light tank that was an auto loader. When we asked how you loaded it when the auto loader quit working. He said oh, no problem. You get out side and load it. The we saw bolts on the inside and asked what it was for. He stated that it was to bolt on add on armor for combat. The skin wasn't thick enough for real combat. Did I mention that you had to remove much of the insides to mount the add on armor. When you take the human element out of actual combat, it isn't combat anymore. It's a big video game with actual gaming pieces.

Nice see the HOW boys step up and you guys forget someone is still behind the wheel of that beast it just not inside but in a safe area to operate remotely

if this badass electric "pocket tank" was around when i was younger i surely would have answered the call of duty

Has any government bought anything RipSaw? How have they been funded for like 20 years now?

So they revive the T92 light tank, redesigned it and made it unmanned. Thats cute

Did they use to be on a TV show years ago? They had a manned Ripsaw back then.

Stoner has some words of caution he’d like to share.

Did that man just say that it's the world's first? Doesn't the Russians have the Uran family of UGV? Uran family is in late development stage already.

It's electric hybrid .I get it it's designed to be environmentally friendly except that the pipe in the front fires lead

So this thing drives alongside Abrams tanks to provide flanking cover?

When the vice president is sent out to describe something he does not really understand. It is modular. Really really modular. It is super duper modular. You can bolt stuff on there without tools. Unprecedented modularity.

this is gonna end well in 10 15 years give or take

Looks pretty awesome to me.

All I can picture is Archer saying "Do you want Terminators? because that's how you get Terminators."

I really hate how people mix-up the idea of robotic and remote operated. Robotic means that vehicle would be completed computer control NO HUMAN decision making once deployed. This vehicle is actually remote operated because there is a human controller operating it.

Remote Combat Vehicles are great, until the enemy hacks the wireless communication controls.

I heard "Ripsaw" and the light in my brain went on. I miss watching the Howes television show

Eh, thing is about battery powered tanks is well...they only can go for a few hours before having a lengthy recharge period.

Is it mad that I don't think much of it?

It's got that WWII, Greatest Generation vibe. Check out the running gear. And the name "M5", like M5 Stuart.

Bruh you could literally create a command and conquer batallion. All you need is a couple of drones in the air to let you see the battle ground and command all your units that you deploy. In other words Halo Wars, Star Craft, and Command and Conquer in real life, I'd love to command these damn

Yes Skynet thanks you for your contribution.

This is wonderful. Full protection.

Unmanned mini tanks almost every country is developing something similar. Wars gonna be like playing online war games.

I was kind of expecting a little footage of that thing in action, instead of just a couple of guys talking. :/

Okay but its armor is a lot thinner than an M1A2 and especially an M2A2. So your more likely to lose it in the field. And its armor is also riveted, so it has a high likeliness to fail and pop off even if it stops a threat.

*Jane's,* what is that suspension they have on the vehicle. That looks like alternating torsion bars (with the same part applied on both sides of the vehicle in opposite directions) but with massive bumb-stops and old-style bogies. Is that correct?

It looks like an upgraded M4 : "Tommy Cooker", like you can take it out with any RPG.

Every light infantry company in the Army should have this

The Howe brothers have been peddling their Ripsaw to the military for about a decade. Had it actually been used by the military?

A minute in and now I understand the 'modular' comments. Btw did y'all know it's modular.

I'm seeing a two-man crew for swarms of these for urban operations where you're sneaking and peeking and scooting, not going toe-to-toe. Driver in front. Commander/Gunner in turret. Turret has gatling cannon plus direct-fire mortar or anti-tank or thermobaric missiles for urban bunker busting. Urban warfare needs some innovative solutions.

Building... unable to comply, building in progress. ------------------------------------- Construction complete.

It's not a robot! It's a remote operated vehicle. I wonder where operators are? Sitting on the ground few hundred meters behind or they have another vehicle for them? It sounds like logistic nightmare...

what if the enemy sprays all the optics with a spray canned drone?

The return of the Ripsaw

....And we call it Panzer II by his grandpa Panzer II. Defense industry are on technological plateau for tank hardware development. and other areas as well.

The suspension looks like it came from the pre war German heavy tanks.

I remember when the Howe Bro's first built the ripsaw. The Army didn't know what to do with it.

I liked Howe, the marketing translator from textron was almost comedic.